{"id":931,"date":"2007-11-30T10:01:16","date_gmt":"2007-11-30T14:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/2007\/11\/30\/931\/"},"modified":"2007-11-30T11:51:06","modified_gmt":"2007-11-30T15:51:06","slug":"931","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=931","title":{"rendered":"Countdown to the referendum in Venezuela"},"content":{"rendered":"

I think Hugo Chavez is slowly coming to the realization that he should have spent more time working on his own population than on world opinion over the past few months. Hobnobbing with Ahmadinejad<\/a>, Putin<\/a>, the Castro<\/a> brothers, probably played well in the anti-US international press<\/a>, but it did nothing to\u00c2\u00a0advance his goals as the Supreme Leader of South America.<\/p>\n

His missteps in “maleta-gate<\/a>” and pushing the Spanish King to tell him to shut up did nothing to endear him to his people. The Miami Herald<\/a> (h\/t PAXALLES<\/a>) reported the other day that he even threatened to imprison a Venezuelan cardinal;<\/p>\n

Ch\u00c3\u00a1vez threatened reprisals — and even prison — against Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino as church officials publicly criticized constitutional revisions proposed by the president — and to be approved or rejected in a Sunday referendum — as “morally unacceptable.”<\/p>\n

In a speech televised to this predominantly Catholic country, Ch\u00c3\u00a1vez branded Urosa Savino as ”a thug,” ”stupid,” ”mentally retarded,” ”sycophant” and defender of “dark interests.”<\/p>\n

But rather than shying away from confrontation with a popular and powerful president, the church fired back.<\/p>\n

”Let them jail the cardinal and we’ll see what happens in this country. . . . They are not going to shut us up with actions of that type,” Msgr. Ovidio P\u00c3\u00a9rez Morales, president of the Venezuelan Episcopal Conference, said this week. The group is made up of the country’s bishops.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It became evident that he’s got his people worried about his president-for-life schemes yesterday in the streets of Caracas (Washington Times’ Martin Arostegui<\/a>);<\/p>\n

Protesters flooded the streets of Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, yesterday to oppose a package of constitutional amendments they fear would make Hugo Chavez president for life and abolish private property.<\/p>\n

“Not like this,” shouted tens of thousands of marchers carrying Venezuelan flags and dressed in blue \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the chosen color of the opposition \u00e2\u20ac\u201d as they streamed along Bolivar Avenue.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Venezuelans will vote on a package of 69 amendments proposed by Mr. Chavez, who says he wants to remain president for the next quarter century, if not longer.<\/p>\n

One amendment would get rid of term limits, allowing Mr. Chavez to be re-elected indefinitely, while another could allow his government to seize private property.<\/p>\n

The latter amendment says:<\/p>\n

“All property will be subject to the contributions, burdens, restrictions and obligations that the law establishes in the spirit of public use or general interest. The expropriation of any kind of good may be declared without restricting the right of state officials during the judicial process.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Wall Street Journal’s Jose de Cordoba writes about the basic worries of the average Venezuelans;<\/p>\n

Mr. Ch\u00c3\u00a1vez remains popular with many poor Venezuelans, on whom he has spent billions on programs subsidizing food, education and health. They may like some of the proposed changes — like cutting the workday from eight to six hours and providing pensions for street peddlers and other informal workers — but many of the same supporters are cool toward Mr. Ch\u00c3\u00a1vez’s plan for turning the country into a socialist regime. “This business which is mine may not end up being mine,” said Luis Pe\u00c3\u00b1a, who runs a mom-and-pop store in a Caracas barrio and has previously supported Mr. Ch\u00c3\u00a1vez. “We don’t want more socialism.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Perhaps Chavez’\u00c2\u00a0biggest misstep in this process was\u00c2\u00a0making the referendum about his own future in Venezuela’s government;<\/p>\n

“Whoever says he’s for Ch\u00c3\u00a1vez and votes ‘no’ is a traitor,” he told thousands of followers at one recent rally. He has told supporters he would consider stepping down if the constitutional changes lose.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A Columbo-Americana’s Perspective has photos of the march yesterday here<\/a> and here<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0And a video from Julia<\/a> of The End of Venezuela as I know it<\/a>. The Devil’s Excrement<\/a> describes the march from the inside;<\/p>\n

It was a long and very tiring day, as I joined the march in favor of voting NO on Sunday’s Constitutional Reform referendum, which took place in Avenida Bolivar, Chavez’ favorite place to hold rallies, but which has been curiously banned for the opposition for exactly five years. This time around, the pressure from the student movement was too much for the Government, and as the students began calling to go to the Presidential Palace, the authorities yielded Avenida Bolivar to today’s rally.<\/p>\n

There were five separate marches from various places in Caracas and attendance was simply massive.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Fabiola Sanchez<\/a> of the Associated Press comments on the size of the crowds;<\/p>\n

More than 100,000 people flooded the streets of the capital Thursday to oppose a referendum that would eliminate term limits for President Hugo Chavez and help him establish a socialist state in Venezuela.<\/p>\n

Blowing whistles, waving placards and shouting “Not like this!” the marchers carried Venezuelan flags and dressed in blue _ the chosen color of the opposition _ as they streamed along Bolivar Avenue.<\/p>\n

“This is a movement by those of us who oppose a change to this country’s way of life, because what (the referendum) aims to do is impose totalitarianism,” said former lawmaker Elias Matta. “There can’t be a communist Venezuela, and that’s why our society is reacting this way.”<\/p>\n

No official crowd estimates were available, but opposition politician Leopoldo Lopez said about 160,000 protesters filled the avenue, and thousands more spilled over onto surrounding roads. The rally was among the largest by the opposition in recent years.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Caracas Chronicles’ Francisco<\/a> has some of the latest polling results;<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

My sense is that C21 is closer to the mark than Datanalisis here, simply because they make more of an effort to poll the “hidden 25%”: rural voters. So if we can get more than, say, 65% turnout, I think the No will be very hard to beat.<\/p>\n

So this one’s in the bag, right? I mean, all the abstentionists are falling into line behind the No vote…CNR, AD, even Marta Colomina, for chrissakes. And turnout was 75% last December, so how could it possibly fall below that this time?<\/p>\n

Not so fast. Though it’s gaining in currency, that analysis badly distorts what the turnout challenge is really all about.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Chavez has his cheerleaders, though – like this Badtux<\/a> fellow who blames Chavez-ism on\u00c2\u00a0 George Bush (of course). Oh, and our policy of installing a “white-skinned ruling class” in Venezuela that oppresses the “darkskinned majority”. Buddy, you ought to take a trip to Venezuela sometime – your ignorance\u00c2\u00a0runs deep.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

No matter how the vote turns out,\u00c2\u00a0I suspect Venezuelans are going to have a real tough day on Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think Hugo Chavez is slowly coming to the realization that he should have spent more … Countdown to the referendum in Venezuela<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-foreign-policy","category-hugo-chavez"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}